


Black Lamb

by Gegenschein



Series: Deviant Behaviors (Promptober 2020) [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hank's in a bad place for a while and takes it out on Connor, Mentioned Cole Anderson, Poor Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Poor Hank, Poor Sumo too I guess but he's a champ he'll handle it, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), at least that's what i'm going for:, but everyone's ok in the end, canon-typical obscenity, much love to the DBH AW Discord server that inspired me to write this, referenced suicidal ideation, some of the usual suspects at the DPD make an appearance but not enough to merit character tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gegenschein/pseuds/Gegenschein
Summary: Before Connor had come barreling into his life, Hank Anderson drank. A lot.Most people thought he did it to forget the hard truth of his past, but that wasn't quite right.Hank drank to remember.[Big shout out toLehennefrom theAndroid Whump Discord serverfor providing useful and encouraging feedback on this during editing. Getting a second pair of eyes on a draft version made me feel less nervous about posting a fic to this site for the first time--thanks, Lehenne! Any remaining mistakes are, of course, mine alone.]
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Series: Deviant Behaviors (Promptober 2020) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028092
Comments: 38
Kudos: 89





	1. The Connor Effect

**Author's Note:**

> This story originated as a fill for [Nolfalvrel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nolfalvrel/pseuds/Nolfalvrel)'s Promptober 2020 challenge, Oct. 13: “loss/reunion.”
> 
> Initially, it was supposed to be a short one-shot about Sumo running off after Hank and Connor got into an argument and the joyful reunion that ensued when he found his way back home. Somewhere along the line, that entire plot got scrapped and the story you can find below manifested instead. I'm still not sure how things managed to go so far off the rails, but I hope you'll enjoy the results.

It had been an abnormally slow Thursday at the DPD. 

In many respects, that was a good thing. Unfortunately, however, Hank wasn’t in the right mood to properly appreciate the rare instance of calm at work. That morning, he’d woken up feeling irritable and more than usually morose for no particular identifiable cause, and nothing that had happened since had managed to put him in a better humor. 

No rhyme or reason to it, really. It was just one of those days.

Since in Hank’s case a lack of calls out or updates on open investigations meant time spent dedicated solely to working through his hefty report backlog, he’d been stuck scrolling through mind-numbing walls of text for the last several hours. It was exhausting in a way entirely distinct from the more hands-on elements of his job, and without Connor around the joint to shoot the breeze with, there was very little to break up the monotony. 

Hank was beyond ready to go home, kick back, and catch up on what the boys had got up to while he was at work. A few hours ago, Connor had sent him a photo of an unusually pristine Sumo, fur shaken dry and exceptionally fluffy in the wake of his monthly bath, and since then, Hank had been itching to get himself back to the house and give the dog’s coat a good ruffle. 

Doubtless Sumo had already found a way to undo all of Connor’s hard work that morning, but Hank didn’t mind. Grubby or clean, he’d ruffle that coat. 

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t relate to Sumo’s incorrigibly slobby ways, anyhow. Hank was all too aware that Connor’s unflagging efforts at turning chez Anderson into something resembling a respectable household were the only thing keeping him from slumping back into the depths of his old apathetic slovenliness, himself. 

How Connor had kept up his optimistic enthusiasm for Project Rehabilitate Hank in the face of his subject’s recurrent backsliding fuck only knew, but so far, he had.

Not that there weren’t perceptible signs of overall improvement in the months since Connor had launched the initiative. There were. Even Hank’s colleagues on the force had started to notice a difference. 

Lately, more often than not Hank had arrived at work practically on time, for one thing. 

He didn’t drink on the clock anymore, for another. 

Truth be told, Hank didn’t drink much at all, these days. Fowler, Chen, Reed, and the rest weren’t aware of the arrangement, but the fact of the matter was Connor had finally got him to swear off the hard stuff back in February. While the two of them had agreed he’d keep a few beers around the house to allow him to ease into sobriety rather than quitting cold turkey, that was it. He hadn’t touched a drop of whiskey, vodka, or brandy in over four months. Jimmy’s Bar was nothing but a fond memory.

On the whole, it felt good. Better than Hank had thought it possibly could, actually. It wasn’t easy holding himself to the promise he’d made, but sometimes he noticed Connor openly regarding him with a happy sort of pride, and astoundingly, it turned out that was enough to keep him going. 

Hank was a grown man. He knew it was ridiculous to be relying to such an extent on validation from a kid with less than a year of life experience under his belt. (And damn, if it didn’t still fuck Hank up a little every time he remembered how unbelievably young Connor was.) It was just that nobody had looked at him in a long, long time the way Connor looked at him, trust and affection plain on his face. 

Ridiculous or not, it made Hank want to try harder. 

That was why some days, incredibly, Hank even laid off the beer. Thanks to the funk he was in right at the present moment, he knew today wasn’t going to be one of those days, but that was all right. Connor understood if sometimes he needed a can or two to tide him over. 

He didn’t have work tomorrow, anyway. One of his rare Fridays off. So knocking back a little more than was usual for him nowadays shouldn’t cause any issues. 

Connor had the night off from his security job at the aquarium, too, so this was a chance to get some quality time in with him. Hopefully, Hank would manage to drag himself far enough out of the unfounded gloom currently hanging over him to properly enjoy the opportunity. 

Hank eyed the chronometer display at the corner of his console. Only twelve more minutes and he could kiss his pending reports backlog goodbye and dive headfirst into the long weekend. 

Officers Chen, Person, and Miller seemed to be having similar thoughts, because the three of them had already abandoned their consoles to gather in a knot near Chen’s desk, animatedly chatting away. They were discussing their plans for the evening, and Hank listened to the conversation with half an ear—anything was more interesting than paperwork—but since said plans seemed to mostly involve bar hopping and a potential bout of drunken karaoke, he wasn’t especially intrigued. His interest only dimmed further when Reed drifted over to join the group and announced his intention of taking part. 

It occurred to Hank that he should probably start clocking out now if he wanted to elude any potential attempts from his coworkers at roping him into their plans for the night. There was a small chance Tina or one of the others—not Reed, of course, but possibly Miller or Person—might try to convince him to join them. While Hank had decided in advance against accepting the offer, avoiding the whole discussion to begin with was ideal. 

He checked the virtual clock on his console again. Only three minutes to go, now. Thank Christ. 

Hank closed out the remaining documents he had pulled up on the screen and started to shut down his computer. 

He was reaching for his keys when Tina Chen called out to him by name. 

“Hank, you’re off tomorrow, too, right?” she said, voice carrying loudly across the space between their desks. “You should come with!” 

Damn it. Hank hadn’t been fast enough. He bit back a sigh. 

“Nah,” he threw back, casually. “Connor’s got the evening off. We’ve been planning on having a quiet night in. Maybe watch a movie or something.” 

Tina, clearly in social-organizer mode, looked ready to object. More than likely, she was about to suggest calling Connor up and asking him to join the party, an option Hank most definitely didn’t want to explore. 

Hank was too old for the sort of carousing the 20- and 30-somethings of the DPD got up to on occasions like this, and Connor was too… Connor. Hank knew he wouldn’t be excited by the prospect either, especially given his constant vigilance of Hank’s alcohol intake, no matter how Hank insisted he wasn’t on the verge of a complete relapse into degenerate booziness. 

If Tina Chen issued Connor a direct invitation and Hank didn’t openly oppose it, however, odds were the kid would be too polite to decline. And Hank wasn’t about to tell Connor how to answer when he was still struggling to come to terms with the mere idea that he had the right to make his own decisions about anything. 

So there it was. Unless Hank nipped this in the bud before Tina got Connor on the line, instead of their long-anticipated evening in, the pair of them would be stuck sipping thirium and cheap beer in the corner of some overcrowded bar while trying to keep Hank’s increasingly tipsy colleagues from doing anything too aggressively stupid. 

Before Hank had finished formulating a polite but definitively firm rejection to the oncoming proposal to appoint him and Connor chaperones to the DPD’s resident bunch of overgrown children, however, Person set the conversation flying down a different set of rails. 

“Whoa,” she said, honest surprise splashed over her features. “Connor still lives with you?” 

At Hank’s presumably bemused expression, she hastened to add, “He didn’t move out when he got his new job, I mean? Wouldn’t it be more convenient for him to live closer to the aquarium?” 

Hank fought the urge to snap back at this line of questioning. He knew Person didn’t mean it as an insult or an accusation, even if he couldn’t ignore the implication the words carried that Hank was somehow keeping Connor from taking advantage of the freedom the revolution had brought him half a year ago. 

He reminded himself that Person wasn’t malicious. She just a naturally curious individual, to put it as nicely as possible. 

Hank could think of other not-so-nice ways of putting it, too, but he stoically ignored the parts of his brain supplying those alternatives. He was trying to be more civil these days, to avoid burning the few bridges he still had standing with his coworkers. Maybe he was even trying to construct a few new ones. 

It was all part of the Connor Effect. 

Right now, though, Hank was having a hard time fighting the impulse to blow up in defense of his decision to keep Connor on as a housemate. 

Changes in federal and local law had made it possible for androids to rent their own property, sure, but Connor hadn’t wanted to move out, and Hank liked having him around. That’s all there was to it. 

He reminded himself neither of them owed anyone an explanation and felt himself start to simmer down. 

The desire to lash out suddenly grew again by leaps and bounds, however, when Reed snidely remarked, “Didn’t you know? When it turned out Mr. Roboto couldn’t handle playing with the big boys, Anderson felt so bad for him he signed the adoption papers. We have an altruist in our midst, Person.” 

“Connor’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself,” Hank ground out, “and you know he was more than qualified to stay on the force, if he’d wanted to.”

There. That was polite, wasn’t it? Factual and non-combative. Connor would approve. Time was Hank would have slugged Reed for less, so he was inclined to chalk this one up as a win. 

Too bad he didn’t feel particularly triumphant. 

Tina shot Reed one of her most quelling looks. On anybody else, it probably would have worked, but Reed appeared to be totally unrepentant. If anything, he seemed disappointed Hank hadn’t reacted more strongly. 

“Nobody here thinks Connor can’t handle himself,” Tina said firmly, regardless. 

Reed scoffed, but mercifully kept otherwise quiet for the moment. 

“Actually, if he’d like to join us, too,” Tina went on, skillfully herding them all back toward the original topic, “it would be great to catch up with him. We haven’t seen him in a while.” 

“Maybe some other time,” Hank said noncommittally. 

His sour mood was turning sourer by the minute. He knew he shouldn’t let Reed get to him like he did, but for now, the best option was to simply remove himself from the situation. He grabbed his jacket, wallet, and keys and got up to go. 

“You guys wouldn’t have to stay the whole evening,” Tina tried, in a last-ditch effort. “Chris is only planning to stick around for like an hour or so.” 

Chris nodded in support of the assertion. 

This was unsurprising. Hank suspected Chris was almost as eager to get back home as Hank was. Like Connor, though, the guy suffered from terminal politeness. 

“Ah, give it up, Ti,” Reed cut back in. “You heard the man. He’s in a hurry to get back to playing happy families with his wind-up doll.” Hank didn’t even attempt to disguise the scowl he felt settling over his features this time, but Reed continued undeterred, “I mean, who needs real people when you’ve got a plastic substitute on standby, right?” 

He favored Hank with an acerbic smile, punchable face looking even more punchable than usual. 

Hank stared back in unconcealed disgust. The words were uncomfortably close to the sort of thing he’d used to spout himself, once upon a time. 

Before last November, that was. Before the deviancy case, and Markus Manfred, and the revolution. But most importantly, before Connor. 

All the impassioned public demonstrations and legal-system overhauls in the world were unlikely to have made much of an impression on Hank’s anti-android sentiments if it hadn’t been for the influence of one android in particular. Hank thanked his lucky stars that CyberLife had sent Connor his way when they had. Only laudable thing the organization had ever done, in his opinion. 

Before Hank thought up an adequate response to Reed’s outmoded vitriol that involved more than a single finger, Chris stepped in. 

“Come on, man,” he said to Reed. “You don’t gotta be like that.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Reed said easily, waving a nonchalant hand. “Have fun holding tea parties with your robot son this weekend, Anderson. See you Monday.” 

Hank did flip Reed off then. He left without another word. 

“Not cool, dude,” he heard Chris say as he walked out the door, but his mood was far too foul by that point for him to muster up any gratitude toward the man for the half-hearted defense. 

Reed’s comments that Hank had effectively adopted Connor, was using him as a substitute for “real” family, was treating him as if he were his child, followed Hank out through the parking lot. Every step he took plunged him deeper into the morass of violent emotion that had dragged at him all day long. 

It wasn’t until he was settled in the front seat of his car, however, that it belatedly hit him why Reed’s words were eating away at him so successfully in this instance, preexisting bad mood aside. What had him spiraling was, of course, the implication Hank was using Connor to fill the chasm left by Cole’s death. 

The realization brought Hank up short, not because such a low blow was out of character for Reed, but because it hadn’t immediately occurred to Hank that that was what the little weasel was aiming for. Hank hadn’t thought of Cole, first and foremost, when Reed had brought up sons and fathers. 

Hank hadn’t thought about Cole much at all, lately, he suddenly realized. Not compared to how often he had thought of him last year, and the year before that. 

There had been whole afternoons, recently, where Hank, busy with the life he’d been building with Connor, hadn’t spared a single thought for his little boy, cold in the ground. There had been mornings where Cole hadn’t been the first thing on his mind when he woke up. Nights where Cole’s face hadn’t been the last thing he’d seen in his mind’s eye before falling asleep. 

Preoccupied with helping with job interview prep, working on house renovations, and serving as guinea pig for various outlandish “healthy” recipes, Hank had left Cole unmourned and forgotten for days at a time. 

It wasn’t right. It was unforgiveable. A few months ago, Hank would have said it wasn’t even possible. 

Hank shook himself from his shock as best he could and put his car into gear. His mind was still reeling, though, as he began the drive home. 

By the time he was halfway through his commute, he was cursing out loud, fighting to keep the tears from falling. 

By the time he was pulling into his driveway, he’d admitted to himself that a couple beers weren’t going to cut it. Not today. 

The nail in the coffin came when he spotted Sumo coming around the corner at an energetic gallop, Connor close behind. He was jogging to keep up, an unusually bright smile on his face. Neither of them looked as if they had a care in the world, and suddenly, Hank couldn’t stand it. 

He got out of the car and headed straight for the front door. 

He pretended not to notice Connor’s jaunty wave in his direction. 

He pretended not to see the way Connor’s hand fell slowly back to his side as he registered that Hank wasn’t going to return the greeting.


	2. Old Habits

Connor and Sumo weren’t far behind as Hank stalked into the house and through the living room. 

Connor must have noticed something was off, because when he said, “Hello, Hank,” he sounded tense in a way that didn’t square with the repellently cheery scene Hank had just witnessed from the driveway.

Hank had his back to him. He didn’t turn around to check, but he guessed the goofy smile he’d seen adorning Connor’s face moments ago had dropped away. More than likely, it had been replaced with a look of attentive concern. 

Hank grunted in acknowledgement of the greeting this time, at least, but that was all he had in him to give right then. Even when Sumo clattered toward him with an eager bark, dragging his leash along the floor before Connor caught it up again, Hank found it impossible to dredge up a reaction.

He headed into the kitchen without sparing another glance for dog or android, doubtless disappointing both of them. 

In the room he’d just left, he could hear Connor unbuckling the clasps of Sumo’s leash and murmuring something to the dog in a low voice. Probably reassuring him of what a good boy he was despite the cold shoulder from Hank. 

Connor was always telling Sumo what a good boy he was, regardless of the situation. Even when Sumo did fuck all to earn the title, he showed strong evidence of being a very good boy, if you were to trust Connor’s assessment. Kid had a soft spot a mile wide when it came to Sumo, dogs in general… any animals, really.

He was like Cole, that way. 

Hank paused in his tracks, taking a deep breath as he leaned against the kitchen sink. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the overhead cabinet. 

He hadn’t done anything irreversible yet, he reminded himself. 

He could turn this around right now. He could walk back into the living room, switch on the TV, focus on thinking about nothing. He could hit the road again, drive around town until he started feeling a little less wild. He could plant himself in Connor’s garden out back and pull weeds in the fading daylight until he’d tired himself out to the point that a mattress looked more enticing than a bottle.

Hank didn’t do any of those things. For the moment, he stayed where he was, hands gripping the sink edge, head against the cabinet. Breathing in, breathing out.

Connor’s voice floated over to where Hank stood. Without looking, Hank could tell he’d come to hover in the kitchen doorway.

“Hank?” he said, into the silence. Then, more insistently when he didn’t receive an answer, “Hank!”

Kid was like a broken record sometimes. 

Hank resisted the urge to whirl around and snarl at him. It wasn’t his fault Hank was midway through an emotional nosedive.

Despite the forbidding darkness that was doubtless rolling off of Hank in waves, Connor didn’t withdraw. Hank could hear him not-so-subtly shifting in place from foot to foot, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere without getting a response. 

The stubborn refusal to take a hint and leave well enough alone briefly reminded Hank of the frenetic first few weeks of their acquaintance, a period of his existence when it had seemed like he might well be doomed to forever have an RK800-shaped shadow springing from his heels. 

As CyberLife’s purportedly perfect machine, Connor’s insistence on following Hank wherever he went had been part of the whole overeager rookie act he’d had going on. At least, that’s how Hank had accounted for his behavior at the time. Robo-Connor had stuck to his partner on the force with an enthusiasm otherwise reserved for his mission directives, and while his nonstop attempts to coerce Hank into taking part in his zeal for casework had been bemusing and more than a little aggravating, Hank had dealt with similar behavior in humans before. It hadn’t been entirely beyond the realm of his experience, and he’d been able to more or less shrug it off as a temporary irritation.

Then Connor had gone and upended everything he ostensibly stood for. He’d broken through his own programming, undermined the organization he was meant to protect, and carried the revolution he was supposed to suppress to victory. After that, everything had changed. 

Or not quite everything. Even as a deviant, Connor had proved as impossible to shake as ever, following Hank from their meet-up at the Chicken Feed to Hank’s house, to the park, to the grocery store, back to the house. Against Hank’s better judgment, he’d even accompanied him to the DPD while Detroit’s emergency services were still floundering in the chaos brought on by the demonstrations and the subsequent series of bombshell declarations from the White House.

Where Connor’s stubborn insistence on keeping close by had irritated him before, though, it had started to worry Hank, after. The lost duckling impression had taken on more of a desperate tenor after Connor had cut himself loose from CyberLife, and while Hank had been uncomfortable with the idea that the kid was still constantly looking to someone else for direction after all he’d gone through to win his freedom, he hadn’t wanted to drive him off, either. Not while he was still so evidently overwhelmed and bewildered by the world’s enormity.

So, he’d been relieved when Connor had shown growing signs of independence. When Connor had decided for himself that he didn’t want to work at the DPD even though that was where Hank was, when he’d set his sights on another career he’d determined he could be happy in, and when he’d succeeded in landing the position at the aquarium, Hank had felt like… well, yeah, like a proud dad.

At the moment, the comparison just made him sick.

Hank pushed himself away from the sink. Fuck it. This was happening.

He resolutely ignored the uneasy figure still lingering in the kitchen entrance as he shuffled over to the little-used cupboard at the back.

He also did his best to ignore the twinge of guilt he felt when he fished out his emergency back-up bottle of Black Lamb. All these months, it had been waiting there for him, biding its time behind the practically mint-condition set of fancy dinnerware Tess had insisted on buying, way back in another lifetime.

It was the perfect hiding place. Connor would never think to look there, because when did Hank or Connor ever have people over for dinner? 

Never, that’s when. It was always the two of them, alone except for Sumo. Hank hadn’t thought that was sad, but right at this moment, it struck him as tragic as all hell. 

What was he doing, keeping Connor trapped in a derelict house with a lonely old drunk? What was _Connor_ thinking, sticking around? He didn’t owe Hank anything. 

Kid needed to get out there, make friends, learn what it really meant to be a person. Staying here with only Hank for company day-in, day-out wouldn’t teach him anything about life.

At any rate, it wouldn’t teach him anything good.

Hank didn’t risk a look at Connor’s face as he grabbed a glass and carried it over to the table with the whiskey. He knew what he’d see there if he did: a mix of shock, betrayal, and building protest. 

He hadn’t really lied to Connor when he told him he’d tossed the Black Lamb, he reminded himself. He just hadn’t bothered to mention there was another bottle or four in the house. 

He knew immediately that that feeble justification wasn’t going to fly for Connor. It didn’t even fly for Hank, for fuck’s sake. But it was what it was. 

Hank had always been a shit friend and a shit person. It was about time Connor figured that out.

Up to now, Connor hadn’t made any further attempts to engage Hank in conversation, but it was only a matter of time. He was probably currently hard at work constructing the opening lines of a persuasive argument. 

“Can it,” Hank said preemptively. 

He threw the words only vaguely in Connor’s direction, but he was sure they found their mark. There was more soft shuffling, just this side of audible, as Connor shifted his weight around. He was clearly undecided as to how to proceed.

Hank, for his part, had made up his mind. He sat himself down at the table, eyeing the familiar label of the bottle he’d dug out of hiding.

He wasn’t in the right headspace for high school honors debate at the moment. He could indulge Connor’s naïve belief that everything could be solved with logic and open discussion later, after he’d nursed himself out of tomorrow’s inevitable hangover and regained some of the composure he’d spent months working to cultivate. But tonight, he wasn’t having it.

“I’m not in the mood,” he offered, a little less sharply. 

As an explanation for his behavior, it was half-assed at best. But Connor would have to content himself with that for now.

Surprisingly, Connor did as he was told and kept his protests to himself for the time being. He continued to loiter awkwardly in the doorway as Hank poured himself a drink, though, watching all the while.

Hank let him watch. Now that he had his whiskey in front of him, now that he’d passed the point of no return, he felt the agitation and guilt bleeding away into a deceptive tranquility. 

Connor could do whatever he liked. Hank was going to get back to doing what he should never have stopped doing.

He was going to remember Cole. Acknowledge that his son’s death was something that couldn’t be fixed and shouldn’t be forgotten.

Hank opened the bottle and poured himself a generous portion of the amber liquid.

In the doorway, Connor fidgeted. His shadow stretched out over the floor in front of him, thin and frail in the dying light. 

Hank threw back the glass, savored the way its contents burned as they slid down his throat. 

He was out of practice, but it didn’t take him long to polish off his first real drink since February. It was like riding a bike, he thought. The knack comes right back to a person, once they’ve acquired it. 

In fact, it was as if Hank had never stopped drinking at all.

Almost as soon as the glass was drained, he helped himself to another couple fingers of the Black Lamb. Then another couple. 

Then three or four at one go. 

At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before Hank had downed a full two hands’ worth of damned fingers—something, he realized, he hadn’t done since New Year’s. All that alleged progress undone in one sitting. 

Connor was probably thinking the same thing from where he stood only meters away, mutely watching the scene before him unfold.

Hank tried to muster up some regret over the broken promise, some shame at his failure, anything. 

It took too much energy. He just didn’t care.


	3. In Vino

Hank wasn’t keeping count, really, but sometime between the fifth and ninth shot of the night, after the sun had finished making its slow descent, Connor had vanished from his self-appointed guard post. Hank was pretty sure he heard him rummaging around in places he didn’t belong before heading out to the garage.

After a minute or two, he came back inside and resumed position in the kitchen doorway. Behind him, Sumo whined and snuffled around a bit before giving up on beating Hank for Connor’s attention this round. He flopped himself audibly back in his corner.

“You go in my room?” Hank asked. He wasn’t quite slurring, but his tongue already felt thicker than usual. “Mess with my stuff?” 

Normally, the idea would have exasperated him. At the moment, though, it was just the cherry on top of this shit sundae of an evening. He didn’t feel much about it one way or the other.

“Yes,” Connor told him plainly. He didn’t sound repentant in the slightest. Typical.

Though he was still relegated to Hank’s peripheral vision, the tension emanating from Connor’s figure was palpable. Maybe it was Hank’s imagination, but where he’d struck him as merely anxious at the start of the evening, he was now reading as focused. Determined. A man with a mission. 

Hank wondered if he should be on the alert for attempts to physically snatch his whiskey away from him. When a few more minutes ticked by without Connor making a grab for his bottle, though, he decided he’d probably settled on employing subtler tactics of manipulation to end the drinking. Hank waited to see what he’d do.

At first, the answer was underwhelming. Connor just carried on lurking dumbly in the doorway as Hank cradled his glass. 

Since first cracking open the bottle, he’d progressed by easy stages from tossing shots back to sipping slowly at the whiskey. He wondered how long he and Connor had been at their bizarre standoff by this point. An hour? Two?

A fucking long time to be standing around like a statue just watching a guy drink, in any case. Not that Connor had muscles that would give out on him. He could probably stand there until Doomsday, if he chose to. 

When the steadfast tin soldier act didn’t provoke Hank into engaging, however, Connor eventually changed up his strategy. He came all the way into the kitchen and sat himself down across from his mark, drumming his fingers nervously on the table. 

The cadence of the drumming was unnaturally consistent, and Hank didn’t doubt that Connor could keep that up indefinitely, too. Connor was probably only halfway aware he was even doing it, but as he listened to the steady rhythm of synthetic fingerpads striking cheap linoleum, Hank wondered if this was one of those mannerisms CyberLife had programmed into the guy specifically for the purposes of driving interrogation subjects up the wall. 

Well, it wasn’t going to work on Hank. 

When Connor leaned way up into Hank’s personal space uninvited to study his face at close quarters, he doggedly refused to let that work on him, either. 

To be fair to the evil scientists up at Playing God Inc., it probably would’ve been an effectively unsettling move if Connor’s disregard for basic social cues weren’t such old news to Hank. As it was, however, long-term exposure to overbearing androids—to _one_ overbearing android in particular—had given him near-immunity. He easily deflected the flagrant attempts to catch his attention, focusing instead on his bottle and glass. 

It struck him then that he didn’t really need the glass, the way things were going. This was a straight-from-the-bottle kind of night. Funny he hadn’t realized that an hour ago.

Now if Connor would only leave him to enjoy his misery in peace, it’d be just like old times. But of course CyberLife’s groundbreaking detective model, equipped with the latest in investigative software and analytical programming and _blah-dee-blah-blah,_ wasn’t about to take a hint even when Hank handed him a whole collector’s edition set, giftwrapped. 

“Hank,” Connor said once again into the unencouraging silence. The summertime humidity absorbed his voice almost instantly, making it sound more subdued than usual. Or maybe it was the whiskey that was having that effect. Black Lamb tended to soften things up at the edges.

When Hank remained pointedly unresponsive, Connor pressed on, “Why are you drinking again? Did something happen?”

Hank kept right on not answering. He didn’t look at Connor, either, but he could feel his eyes on him as he downed the last of the liquid in the glass and pushed it away, only to bring the whole bottle up to his mouth for another swig.

“Hank,” Connor burst out, more urgently this time, “what’s wrong? I’m worried.”

He sounded like a kid. Like a confused little kid.

Just like that, everything clicked into place. Hank finally brought his eyes up to Connor’s, meeting his concerned look with one of cold appraisal. 

He was drunk by this point, sure. He would readily acknowledge that. But he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t make out what was right in front of him. 

He decided he didn’t like what he was seeing.

"You're trying to replace Cole," he said. 

By rights, he should have sounded angry. Furious, even. He was tired, though, down to the bone, and the whiskey had begun to settle over him in earnest now, muffling everything. It was like a thick blanket, heavy and familiar even after all the months he’d spent plodding toward sobriety. As a result, the words came out unsatisfyingly dull and monotone.

Despite the underwhelming delivery, Connor must have rightly interpreted what he was hearing as a serious accusation, because he froze up where he sat. 

Good. His “social integration matrix” or whatever the fuck it was he’d gone on about when he’d first been set loose on Detroit over half a year ago must not be total garbage if it was at least informing him that plotting to usurp the place of someone’s dead kid would generally be considered overstepping. 

Even stopped clocks, huh.

Even if Connor’s systems were telling him he’d made a mistake, though, they apparently didn’t have any useful pointers for him on how to rectify the situation. Connor was as hopeless in the face of interpersonal friction as ever, and this time Hank wasn’t stepping in to help. He only sat and stared as Connor struggled to come up with an adequate response.

"No," was all Connor said, in the end. He was a little too emphatic about it, Hank thought, a little too adamant. His LED was blinking a damning yellow.

Hank watched Connor’s built-in lie detector flicker and spin frantically in place and started to feel a little of the anger he’d been missing rising up through the numbness.

 _"Yes,"_ he shot back. "Don't lie to me, Connor. You think there's some kind of code you can crack that’ll make me love you like I loved my boy.”

He thought he maybe saw Connor flinch back at that, but the movement was so minute that he couldn’t be sure. He barreled on, regardless, not wanting to give Connor the chance to jump in with some empty, placating dialogue option meant to steer the conversation into less emotional territory. 

It was time to talk about this, Hank decided. Sometimes you just had to get things off your chest. 

“Everything's a puzzle for you, isn't it,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on Connor. “Everything's a neat little mystery for you to solve. You've got it in your head that if you get all the steps just right, you can make it so everything’s sunshine and roses and we'll… we’ll start playing happy families. Well, you can’t, Connor. There isn’t some… process you can… you can work out for every scenario to ‘achieve optimal results’ or whatever the fuck you’d call it. In real life, sometimes things are just shitty, and there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it." 

Hank wasn't yelling, not yet, but it gave him a sick satisfaction to see that Connor's stupid robolight was swirling more red than yellow now, racing around and around like an idiot dog chasing its own tail.

He should probably stop there, he thought. A part of him was insisting that he'd made his point. Another part of him was telling him he’d already gone too far. 

But those voices in his head were drowned out by others, ones that were screaming at him in miserable reproach over how close he’d come to forgetting Cole, to allowing himself to blithely get on with his life when his son, his _real son,_ was never coming back. 

Hank took another swig from the bottle and kept going.

"That's not how it works. You don't get to take my son’s place just because you've moved into my house. You can take Sumo on walks and cook meals and bitch about my bad habits all you want. It doesn't mean you're my kid."

"I know I could never replace Cole, Lieutenant," Connor interjected, quick and precise. Hank recognized the inflection as one Connor had used during negotiations with armed criminals, back when he was still on the force. It wasn’t something Hank had ever expected to hear in their kitchen.

In _Hank's_ kitchen, that was. That was the whole issue, wasn't it. He'd been treating Connor like family, like this was his home as much as it was Hank’s, like he had a say in how Hank went about his daily existence, how he handled his grief, when Connor was just his partner at work. His former partner, at that. 

Sure, they'd seen some shit together, and sure, Connor was a nice enough ki—nice enough guy, now that he'd put CyberLife behind him. But he wasn't Cole. It was time to set the record straight.

"Damn right you can't," he said, before Connor's negotiator algorithms had time to spit out some more pacifying bullshit. "Nobody can. So drop the innocent act, huh, and stop trying to be something you aren't!"

He _was_ shouting now, he realized. It didn't bother him, exactly, but he wasn't sure when he'd passed the point from speaking to yelling. His voice must have been steadily rising in volume as he’d warmed to his theme.

For a second, he was sure that Connor was going to protest again that he had not been attempting to audition for the role of Hank's son in the first place. But Connor's eyes merely drifted to the liquid left at the bottom of the bottle, measuring, before scanning Hank's face. 

Hank didn't know what Connor's fancy analysis programs were telling him, but it was probably something obvious like _drunk off his tits_ and _unreasonably angry._ So what. Connor had been around him too long to reserve the right to be surprised that Hank was a disgrace. 

Hank tipped the rest of the bottle down his throat just because he knew it would tick him off.

Sure enough, the last remaining traces of yellow in Connor's LED were instantly swallowed up by an angry red. Despite the warning signal flashing on the side of his head in plain view, however, Connor, voice still carefully controlled, only said, "Of course, Lieutenant." 

Having finished whatever scan he was running, he looked down at the table in what was probably meant as a mollifying gesture.

It pissed Hank off that Connor's negotiator programs were apparently responding to him as a hostile threat to be assuaged when he wasn't waving a gun around or menacing anyone, just having a quiet drink in the privacy of his home. 

A man should be allowed that, he thought blearily. A man should have the right to mourn his own son by drinking his own whiskey in his own kitchen on his own time. He should have that right, even if Connor’s hangdog posture suggested otherwise.

Hank shoved himself up from the table, deliberately ignoring the way Connor jolted at the sudden movement, even though this reaction was far more visible than the last time he’d recoiled. Back to the fine-dining cupboard Hank went, opening another usually untouched compartment to grab the second emergency bottle he had tucked away in its depths. 

He hadn't drunk this much in months, he mused again. It must have been hitting him harder than he was expecting as a result, because he stumbled a little on his way back to the table.

In an instant, Connor was at his side, grabbing at his arm and waist to support him as if he were a geriatric patient on his last legs. Hank snarled and shook him off, gripping the counter with his free hand.

"What did I just tell you," he grated out. "I don't want your help. Go away."

"Lieutenant, I don't think that's—" Connor began.

"Go away!" he snapped, more loudly. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!” He was probably yelling again. Distantly, he thought he shouldn't be yelling.

Then again, he shouldn't have to repeat himself. Connor had heard him perfectly fine the first time, stubborn bastard.

Miraculously, his words seemed to have gotten through on the second try. Connor moved away.

"All right," he said, and left the kitchen. 

Hank lifted his swimming head to check he'd really gone. He had. 

Hank stumbled back to his seat at the table, second bottle clutched firmly in hand.

That brought him in eyeline of the couch in the living room. He snorted when he saw Connor sitting there, straight-backed and alert, staring right at him. Of course he hadn't gone farther than a few meters.

Hank cracked open the new bottle and took a quick pull. 

When he glanced over at the living room again, Connor was looking away, to all appearances entirely focused on the wall ahead of him. Hank was confident he was still watching him out of the corner of his eye, though. His LED was blinking in the darkness like a buoy beacon out at sea. 

Fine. If he wanted to throw an internal temper tantrum over Hank's drinking habits, he was welcome to do so, as long as he didn't bother Hank with it.

The house fell into a cheerless silence. For a long while, the only sounds to be heard were those of nocturnal insects beginning their rounds outside, the occasional discontented huff from Sumo, and the clink of Hank’s bottle on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idiom referenced by this chapter's title usually concludes with the word _veritas_ , "truth." I'm personally unconvinced, however, that drunkenness leads to truth-telling more often than it leads to a muddying of the waters. 
> 
> Certainly, I don't view the _in vino veritas_ platitude in its entirety as straightforwardly applicable to the events of this chapter. Hopefully I've managed to convey here that Hank is coming from a deeply misguided place, misinterpreting his own feelings and motivations as well as Connor's as he spirals emotionally, and that the whiskey isn't helping clear things up for him one bit, even if he thinks it is.
> 
> If I didn't succeed in getting that across, however, you are of course welcome to read this all differently. As Roland Barthes has long since established, even if you can sometimes hear the haunting ghostly call of their voice echoing through the chapter notes, the author is quite dead. RIP me.


	4. How Clear, How Lovely Bright

The next thing Hank knew, it was late morning and he was waking up in bed.

He didn't remember what had happened after he’d retrieved the second bottle. He didn't remember much of anything from the evening before, actually, though he had a vague impression of downing shot after shot of whiskey and yelling at Connor to lay off. 

He hoped he hadn't been too hard on the kid in his inebriated state, but he knew Connor's bright-eyed "here to serve" routine tended to get on his nerves when he was under the influence. Apologies were probably in order, above and beyond the ones naturally owed for breaking his resolution to keep off the drink.

First things first, though. He needed to get himself out of bed and do something for the hammering in his head before he could even start to formulate an appropriate apology. With a groan, Hank sat up.

He had no memory of getting into bed last night. He wondered if Connor had put him there, and grimaced. 

He was not looking forward to seeing the extra-special, limited-edition expression of disappointment Connor only pulled out for occasions like this. 

His head throbbed with particular vigor as his body adjusted to the change in position, and Hank groaned again, leaning forward with eyes closed to clutch it in his hands. 

Connor had been so proud of Hank’s progress so far. Somewhere deep down, Hank had known it wouldn't last, but Connor had a seemingly indefatigable optimism about it all. Or he had done, until now. Maybe this was what would finally take the wind out of his sails.

Well, up and at ’em, Hank told himself, without enthusiasm. Time to take stock of the damage.

Connor was already in the kitchen when Hank shuffled in, setting a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and toast down on the table with preternaturally perfect timing. 

Hank eyed him warily as he wandered over to his seat, but Connor only bustled around the room as he normally did at the start of Hank’s day, tidying up the stovetop and counter space he’d used for breakfast prep.

"Good morning, Lieutenant," he said as Hank slowly sat down. He sounded calm. Pleasant, even. 

His LED was an unbroken yellow, though, and he wasn't smiling. Shit.

Plus, Hank mused, what was Connor doing "Lieutenant"-ing him in the confines of their own home? He hadn't done that since... since... well, Hank couldn't remember the last time he had.

He was more than a little upset, then. This one wasn’t going to get swept under the rug with a quick apology. Connor was going to demand they have a long, meaningful heart-to-heart about Hank’s relapse, and he wasn’t going to let Hank wriggle his way out of the discussion this time. 

Double shit. 

Hank squinted at his housemate groggily. He was having limited success so far at kicking his brain into gear, but he trusted the coffee would help.

"Mornin'," he returned. He wasn't ready for a bigger conversation yet. He took a sip from the mug and added, "Thanks."

At that, Connor did twitch his lips into a smile, but it wasn't a real one. 

Hank suddenly felt like he was an especially unpopular guest at a diner, and Connor was the unlucky server who'd drawn the short straw and was forced to wait his table. The feeling solidified further when instead of sitting down to join him like he usually did, Connor turned and walked straight through the living room and out of the house without another word. 

Hank heard the lawnmower start up a moment later. He drank his coffee and cleared his plate to the sound of Connor mowing the front yard, feeling thoroughly chastised.

As the day wore on, Hank started to grow antsy waiting for a confrontation that refused to manifest. Since breakfast, barely twenty words passed between him and Connor as they went about their regular vacation-day activities, and none of them were a lead-in to the dressing-down Hank was expecting.

In fact, about half the words from Connor’s end were merely “Lieutenant.” 

Every time he used the formal designation, tone frigidly polite, it felt like another slap in the face. Hank knew he deserved it, but still. 

The afternoon dragged on. Hank fed Sumo. Connor walked Sumo. Hank did some listless channel surfing in the living room. Connor went into his room and… did whatever it was he did in there when the door was closed. Moped, probably, in this instance, circumstances being what they were.

After a few hours of the silent treatment, Hank was the one to break.

He knocked on Connor’s door, feeling somehow even more nervous about the impending conversation than he had when he’d been sure Connor would be the one to instigate it. 

“Hey,” he called softly, after a moment. “Can you come out here? We need to talk.”

Several more nerve-wracking seconds ticked by, but at the end of them, Connor complied.

Silently, the pair of them settled themselves in the living room. It didn’t escape Hank that Connor sat himself as far from him as possible. 

Hank frowned when instead of erring as he normally did on the side of too much eye contact, Connor seemed suddenly unaccountably enraptured by the wooden stand under the unlit TV. He let it go without comment, though.

Hank was uncomfortable about this, too, after all. He could see where Connor was coming from.

Since Connor had evidently decided to make Hank take the reins on this one, Hank cleared his throat and dove right in.

“I fucked up,” he said. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t drink again, and then I did anyway. You’re right to be angry.”

Connor continued to study the apparently extremely interesting design of the cheap TV stand across the room, LED swirling as brightly yellow as it had been that morning. Hank wondered if it had been yellow all day. Not a good sign, if so.

“I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, after yesterday,” Hank went on after a moment. “But I’ll try my best to stay off the whiskey again from here on out. I don’t want to have a repeat of last night.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, so he just added again, “I really am sorry, kid.”

Though Connor still didn’t look up, one corner of his mouth jumped unhappily at the final word. Simultaneously, a sliver of red bled into his LED. Both tells were there one moment and gone the next, but Hank caught them. 

Other than the yellow cast his highly advanced mood ring gave his complexion in the already dimming daylight, however, Connor’s face looked perfectly neutral as he levelly responded, “I’m glad you intend to recommit to sobriety, Lieutenant, but you have no reason to apologize to me.”

Hank’s mouth fell open. Of all the things he’d expected to hear from Connor in the wake of last night’s betrayal, this restrained deflection was not it. 

“Of course I owe you an apology, Connor!” he said. “I broke a promise. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.” He studied Connor’s carefully frozen features as he added, “And I know you’re upset right now, but we’ve been over this. It’s ‘Hank.’ Not ‘Lieutenant.’ Just ‘Hank.’”

Not even this reminder elicited a glance from Connor. He did nod, at least, but it was the sort of nod that merely acknowledged that Hank had been heard and understood. It was not an agreement.

Hank wondered just how loudly he’d yelled at Connor last night. He also wondered what, precisely, he’d been yelling. 

He didn’t want to think it was possible after everything they’d been through together, but Hank couldn’t entirely rule out the prospect that some of his old anti-android rhetoric had crept into his conversation in his drunken state. From what he was seeing, Connor was far more shaken up about the incident than Hank had initially assumed him to be. If Hank had regressed to the point of spouting off some Red-Blooder talking points, that might explain it.

“Look, son—” he started, intending to ask if Hank the Bigot had come out to play last night. Connor, however, cut him off with surprising force.

“Don’t call me that,” he said quickly.

Hank floundered a little at this sudden turn in the conversation. “What?” he asked blankly.

His mind caught up with his mouth a half-second later. “You mean ‘son’?”

“Yes,” Connor said. “Don’t call me that, please.”

This was new. Hank was mystified enough by the unprecedented request that he dropped his previous line of investigation to focus on this latest development.

“All right,” he said cautiously. He looked at Connor with no small concern. “Why?”

Connor’s eyebrows snapped together. Finally, blessedly, he momentarily met Hank’s gaze straight on, startled and probing. He looked away again right after, though. 

Hank watched him attempt to regain control of his countenance, but bewilderment had crept noticeably and apparently irremovably into the otherwise neutral expression. 

He didn’t immediately answer the question. From what Hank was seeing, it was because Connor had been as unprepared for Hank to spring it on him as Hank had been surprised to learn of Connor’s newfound aversion.

Hank, apparently, was expected to instantly understand where the sudden distaste for the word “son” was coming from.

Well, he didn’t, damn it. 

Just _what_ had happened last night?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title comes from the first line of [a poem by A.E. Housman](https://allpoetry.com/XVI:-How-Clear,-How-Lovely-Bright) that I think does a good job of capturing the ups and downs experienced by someone caught in a cycle of attempted self-improvement and relapse into harmful habits. 
> 
> A reference to this poem felt right, mood-wise, for Hank at this stage of the story, gearing up to start over while feeling like he let all the progress he's made over the last several months crash and burn in one fell swoop. But no foreshadowing is intended! I guaranteed you all a happy ending in the tags, and a happy ending you shall have.


	5. Playback

Hank found his thoughts rephrased aloud when Connor hesitantly asked, “What do you remember of yesterday evening?” 

Presumably out of deference to Hank’s chiding earlier, Connor didn’t tack “Lieutenant” onto the end of the question. It was painfully clear, however, that that was who it was addressed to, not “Hank.”

As Hank took a moment to gather his thoughts in response, Connor needlessly specified, “Between the hours of 9 and 11:30 pm.” 

Connor’s habit of defaulting to police interrogation mode while engaging in personal conversation normally amused Hank, but the humor wasn’t landing for him this time. If anything, the stilted formality felt oddly appropriate to the situation. 

Hank wasn’t sure what crime he’d committed, aside from the obvious. But he was growing more and more convinced that he had, in fact, committed some particularly heinous yet-to-be-revealed crime.

“I, uh, I remember drinking,” Hank answered finally. “A lot. I remember—I think I told you to quit trying to help? I’m pretty sure I yelled.” He frowned. He still couldn’t remember precisely what he’d yelled, but the vague impression of raising his voice was definitely there. “Sorry about that.”

Another previously unconsidered explanation for Connor’s behavior suddenly occurred to Hank then. Horrified, he asked, “Connor, did I hit you? Did I—did I hurt you somehow?”

“No,” Connor said immediately. This was apparently what it took to make him stop rigidly contemplating second-hand furniture, because he turned to look instead at Hank, face open and earnest. “I’m uninjured.”

This was not as reassuring as it should have been. Hank had reason to know that what Connor considered “uninjured” in his own case and what normal people considered “uninjured” were two different things. 

Plus, if Hank _had_ laid hands on him last night and Connor’s self-repair whatchamacallit had since taken care of the worst of the damage, odds were good Connor would choose to keep him in the dark about it and leave the entire incident unaddressed forever, if Hank let him.

Hank didn’t intend to allow that to happen. “What did I do?” he asked bluntly. “Connor, what all happened after I… while I was drunk?”

Connor blinked at him, forehead furrowed in consideration. While he didn’t turn his head away again, his eyes drifted to the side in thought. 

Hank’s nerves stretched themselves nearly to the breaking point as he waited for Connor to enlighten him as to the nature of his misdeeds, but he forced himself to keep quiet.

“I was made aware,” Connor said at long last, words carefully chosen, “that I’d misunderstood the nature of our relationship.” He dragged his eyes back to Hank’s face, sincere apology written over his features. His next words came out in a rush. “I’m sorry. I won’t disrespect your boundaries again.”

What the actual fuck.

Connor wasn’t supposed to be apologizing to _him._ Hank wasn’t sure just what was going on here, but if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that between the two of them, only one person ought to be groveling for forgiveness right now, and that person wasn’t Connor.

Before he put this into words, though, Connor hurried on with more of his bewildering, unwarranted outpouring of guilt.

“I realize I've never had the right to set limitations on your alcohol consumption or on your diet. I was overstepping in pushing you to dispose of your property in the past,” he said. “I won’t do any of these things going forward.” 

For _property,_ Hank heard _liquor,_ and winced. Connor was giving off the impression he’d forced Hank’s hand in February, but the kid hadn’t pressured him into anything Hank hadn’t decided on pursuing for himself. 

Hank made his own choices. He always did. Last night was proof enough of that.

This point had apparently not occurred to Connor, though. He merely bit his lip before adding, “I removed your revolver from your room last night as a precautionary measure.” 

The statement was delivered as if it were an especially shameful admission, on top of the rest. Hank could have kicked himself all over again over how miserable Connor sounded beneath the formality. 

“It’s in the lockbox in the garage,” Connor went on. “I’ll retrieve it for you after our conversation has concluded. I apologize for entering your room without permission. I considered it necessary at the time.”

Hank didn’t have to ask why. Connor had been painstakingly open about his concerns regarding the Russian roulette routine he’d caught Hank at the year before. Of all the reasons Connor had cited for pursuing sobriety—and Connor had had an encyclopedia’s worth of convincing arguments to lay off the drink lined up and ready to go—none had come up with such frequency and patent worry as Hank’s tendency when inebriated to play around with the possibility of suicide by revolver. 

In Hank’s opinion, Connor would have been completely justified not only in confiscating the gun last night but in permanently dismantling it with the terrifying proficiency Hank knew him to be capable of. And not just because of the roulette.

But here he was instead, apologizing for taking a more than sensible precaution in the face of Hank’s unpredictable temperament when drunk.

“The second bottle you opened last night is in the cupboard, next to the coffee,” Connor said, to cap it all off. “You don’t need to conceal it from me. I won’t disturb it.”

Hank felt his face twist up some more at the reminder of his deception as much as at Connor’s misguided implication that he was somehow at fault for encouraging Hank to rise above his alcoholism. 

He didn’t know if he could even begin to count the number of ways he’d done Connor wrong.

“Yeah, about that,” he said, deciding he’d start with the last thing Connor had mentioned and work his way back through the whole disheartening list. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I should have tossed the whiskey— _all_ the whiskey—when I told you I did. Hiding that I still had a few bottles around, it was… it was wrong of me to deceive you like that. I’m sorry.”

“I knew they were there,” Connor told him in another sudden, anxious rush. For all the world, it sounded like he was the only one here confessing to months of duplicity. Like this, too, was entirely on him. 

Hank’s heart sank further. As soon as Connor had started apologizing, he hadn’t thought it was possible for him to feel any lower about the whole situation, but apparently there were depths yet unplumbed.

“I pretended not to know,” Connor continued, his tone still unduly guilt-ridden over the position Hank had forced him into. “I didn’t tell you because I hoped you would—well, I hoped you would do something about it yourself.” 

He bowed his head at the end of this statement, ashamed, and Hank wanted to yell. Not at Connor, of course, but at himself. 

How Connor had gone on trusting him to do the right thing all this time despite Hank’s blatant dishonesty and continual failures was beyond him. Apparently he had trusted him, though. And last night, Hank had managed to break that trust more completely than ever before.

A silence grew up between them again as Hank reconsidered which part of this shitshow to address first.

It was entirely possible, he thought, that he’d lived through more awkward pauses in the last twelve hours or so than he had in all the years since the divorce.

“Connor,” he settled on finally, “what made you decide you were overstepping?”

A little bit of red swam into Connor’s LED again before sinking back into the sea of yellow. Hank watched the lights swirl around for another moment before deciding it was safe to continue.

“What did I say to you?” he prodded.

He could tell he was getting close to something important from the way Connor closed off again. He'd gone as stiff as he’d been before launching into the surprise apology, staring fixedly back at the damn TV stand.

"You expressed the conviction I was attempting to replace your son," he said, and Hank's stomach dropped. Connor was talking now in the mechanical, measured way he always reverted to at his most uncomfortable, but even so he hesitated on the final words. "I denied it. You didn't believe me."

Hank ran a hand over his face. With everything today, he’d known it was bad, but this was even worse than he'd thought.

This explained Connor’s reaction to Hank calling him “son,” at the very least. But now that they were in it this deep, Hank had to know if there was anything else he was missing.

"Just... can you tell me exactly what all I said?" he asked Connor. 

He didn’t want to get the nitty-gritty on how he’d taken the one good thing in his life and pissed all over it. He really didn’t. But he needed to understand precisely what harm he’d caused before he could do anything about it.

Connor only glanced sidelong at him, at first. He looked uncertain, probably sensing Hank’s intense discomfort with the topic. 

Hank pulled himself together and added, firmly, "Please."

Connor swallowed and locked his gaze forward again.

The cycling of his LED picked up the pace, too. Hank spotted a returning blip of red in there, one that hung around longer than the last two had, and wondered if he should call the whole thing off after all, for Connor’s sake.

Before he’d made up his mind, though, Connor opened his mouth.

"Don't lie to me, Connor," he began, and Hank stiffened. 

It wasn't Connor's voice coming from his lips. It was Hank's, slurred and belligerent and slightly too loud. It only grew in volume as the accusations came tumbling out, each successive jab crueler than the last. Hank struggled not to sink through the floor in shame and horror as the tirade dragged on.

He wanted to imagine Connor was exaggerating, but he knew he'd only be kidding himself. This was a perfect recording. This was Hank, 100%, in all his glorious undiluted assholery.

When the recital got to the bit about “playing happy families,” Hank couldn’t suppress an especially forceful grimace. He didn’t recollect saying it while in his drunken haze, but he certainly remembered hearing that particular comment from Reed the day before. It must have gotten under his skin even more than he’d wanted to admit.

As much as he’d despised the words when they’d been coming from Reed, it was immeasurably worse hearing them in his own voice, knowing they’d been flung in Connor’s face by the person he trusted most.

Hank didn’t know how he was going to make this up to him. He didn’t know if he _could_ make this up to him.

"...doesn't mean you're my kid," Connor finished, as Hank writhed internally at what he was hearing. By the end of the recorded rant, Hank's voice had reached a decibel and degree of animosity that looked downright eerie emerging from Connor's outwardly calm and controlled features. 

Sumo whuffled in uncomprehending agitation from the corner.

"I... did I say anything else?" Hank asked after the short silence that followed. 

He wanted to believe he wouldn't have left things like that overnight, though he wasn’t about to hold out hope on that front. He didn't have a great track record with decision-making while blind drunk, to put things lightly.

This, however, felt like a new low. The only incident that might rival the present debacle in sheer Hank-generated shittiness was the night in November he'd driven Connor to the park and held a literal gun to his head.

Somehow, Connor had forgiven him for that without a second thought. He shouldn’t have, but that was Connor for you.

Hank knew he shouldn’t let Connor allow him to get away with this, either. But Hank was weak. He’d take forgiveness if Connor was offering. 

It frightened him to think that absolution might not be on the table, this time. If Connor’s ability to forgive and forget had a limit, surely Hank had found it last night and sailed right over it.

"You didn’t say much after that," Connor said, pulling Hank from his wretched reverie. 

He’d answered in his own voice this time, thank God, and at a volume that didn’t threaten to shatter Hank’s eardrums or set Sumo whining again. 

"You told me to stop attempting to become something I'm not. Then you demanded I leave," Connor went on. 

Hank stifled the urge to get up and bang his head repeatedly against the wall. 

"You didn't specify that I leave the house," Connor said, guilt creeping subtly back into his tone, "so I went to the living room." 

He sounded like he thought Hank had meant to kick him to the curb in the middle of the night, leaving him to his own devices. Like he'd exploited some kind of technical loophole, and Hank was going to berate him for his devious cunning.

Maybe Hank would have done that, last night, if he hadn’t passed out first. Christ. 

Connor’s face, in profile, was still carefully composed, but his LED was now peppered with red. Hank didn't blame him.

He didn’t blame him one bit.


	6. Moment of Truth

“I,” Hank said, scrabbling to make sense of everything he’d heard. 

His voice came out dry. He changed tack and tried again.

“None of that was your fault, Connor,” he said. “Hey, look at me.” He waited until Connor turned his head to look Hank in the eyes again. Hank held his gaze firmly, willing him to see the truth of his words. 

“ _None_ of that was your fault,” he repeated. “That was all on me. Me and my issues. 

“You've always had the right to ask me to do better. To _be_ better. I _should_ be better, I want to be, and you... you haven't 'disrespected my boundaries' by being straight with me about my problems, all right? 

“You didn’t do anything wrong when you didn't tell me that you knew about the whiskey, either. I'm the one who fucked up there. Not you.”

Hank momentarily closed his eyes and sucked in a steadying breath before moving on to the crux of the matter.

“And you’ve never tried to take Cole's place,” he said. “I know that.” Emphasizing each word, clear and decisive, he looked into Connor's eyes, searching for understanding. “I _know_ that.”

Connor blinked at him, but didn’t look away. Hank couldn’t tell yet if he believed him or not, so he just plowed on.

“I blamed you for things that you aren’t responsible for because—because I’m not worth shit, that’s all.” 

At that, Connor tried to interrupt, but Hank hurried on. That wasn't a real explanation, and Connor deserved a real explanation.

“You weren’t wrong to think we’re close. We are,” Hank swallowed, “unless I've blown that to hell.” He didn't give Connor time to confirm or deny before clarifying, “Fact is, I do see you as a son.”

“But—” Connor said uncomfortably.

“No,” said Hank, “just listen to me for a sec. I _do_ see you that way, but it’s not because you’ve done anything to try to replace Cole.”

Sitting here now, staring dead-on at the havoc he'd wrought during his humiliatingly ugly pity party, Hank was astounded at his own past self's stupidity. Even drunk as he'd been, he wondered how he ever could've imagined he saw scheming, self-serving calculation in Connor's endlessly patient endeavors to help him back onto his feet.

“You’re just… you’re a great kid, Connor,” he told him. “In your own right. You’re special to me. And no matter how I got it twisted last night, I know that me loving you, us being close... none of it means you’re stealing something that belongs to my boy.”

Hank ran a hand over his face again. Putting his emotions into straightforward terms was difficult for him at the best of times, and these were far from the best of times. But he had to try.

“You didn't use some secret code or program or whatever the fuck garbage I came up with yesterday to make me want you around. That was all bullshit. You've just been you, this whole time, and that's enough. I love you because of who you are, not because you've... manipulated me into it somehow.

“And yeah, I'm not gonna lie—it's been hard for me to believe it, whenever you've told me things could be different. For the longest time, I thought it was impossible for anything to change. Before you showed up, I mean. But you're right, Connor. Things can get better. They already have, in so many ways. You've made me see that I... I've got a shot at being happy. I didn't think I was ever gonna have that again, but I do, with you, and I guess I—it surprised me, is all.”

Just to be safe, he elaborated, “So I shouldn't have said any of that shit to you, last night. None of it was true. I'm sorry, kid.” 

With that, he shut up. What happened next would have to depend on what Connor wanted.

Christ, Hank thought, combing back through the words that had just come pouring from his own mouth. _You made me happy, and that scared me_ —that’s what it all boiled down to, wasn't it. How pitiful the explanation for his behavior sounded to his own ears, now that he'd laid it all out there in plain language.

He was pretty sure it was the truth, though.

Connor just stared.

It went on long enough that Hank's anxiety started mounting again, but he was unwavering in his determination to let Connor call the conversational shots from here on out.

And eventually, Connor did speak. 

“You love me?” he asked.

That was it. No further questions, no recrimination. His voice was very small, but the red had vanished from his LED. Hank actually spotted some blue in the mix for the first time that day.

It struck Hank he'd never told Connor he loved him before. Not in so many words, at least.

“Yeah,” he said thickly. “Yeah. I do.”

He watched Connor think this over. His LED slowed, blue overtaking the yellow in greater quantity with every cycle.

“I love you, too,” he announced, after due consideration.

Hank felt a few of the tears that had been pricking at the back of his eyelids for a while now squeeze their way out into the open. “Come here, son,” he said, then stopped himself, suddenly unsure. “Can I call you that?”

“Yes,” said Connor, simply, and let himself be gathered into a hug.

After Hank had pulled back again, he gave Connor another quick once-over. The blue ring of light now pulsing gently at Connor's temple was encouraging, but Hank had enough experience with RK800 psychology to know that appearances could be deceiving.

“I really didn’t hurt you?" he asked, doubtfully. “Physically, I mean.”

Connor's expression, already soft, grew softer. "No, Hank," he said, and Hank could hear the trust pervading each syllable. He was the one to look away this time. 

So, Connor had gone right back to believing in him, easy as that, huh. 

He didn't deserve it. God.

"Yeah, well," he said, "if I ever get all up in your face again, you do what you have to to defend yourself, got it? Lay me out if that’s what it takes. Don't let me push you around, or—or pull a weapon on you." 

The last part came out in an uncomfortable tumble of syllables, but Hank felt it needed to be said. 

A lot had happened since November. They’d both changed a great deal. In certain worrying ways, however, Connor was still very much the naïve and overly accommodating kid he'd been when Hank had first met him. 

The kid, that was, who had stood unmoving when Hank had threatened him with summary execution merely for being unsure of his place in the world. The kid who had demonstrated that while he might “regret” getting shot in the head, he wouldn’t do anything to prevent it from happening, if that was what Hank wanted.

"Hank,” Connor said now, "I know you won't do any of that. It's all right."

Hank frowned at him, far from reassured. 

Looking at Connor's solemn, trusting face, LED already back to a calm and steady blue after all the shit Hank had put him through, something deep inside of him shifted and rearranged.

Connor was never going to protect himself from Hank, he realized. This was a fact. 

Since that was simply how things were, Hank was going to have to do the job himself. It was up to him, and him alone.

He stood. He walked into the kitchen and pulled out the opened bottle of Black Lamb from where it stood neatly in the cupboard, just as Connor had said. 

Uncapping it, he dumped its contents in their entirety down the sink. 

Quickly, deliberately, he dug out the two remaining bottles of hard stuff he had in hiding and did the same for both of them.

He returned to the living room, where Connor was watching him with wide eyes.

"I'm keeping the beers," he told him gruffly. “For now.” 

That the beers would be out of the picture, too, in time, went unspoken, but internally, Hank swore he’d make it happen. No matter how long it took, he was going to wean himself off even those. He couldn’t afford to leave himself any room for backsliding into the sort of behavior he’d subjected Connor to the night before.

“And… and we should lose the revolver,” he added as the coup de grace, before he could change his mind. “Don’t give it back to me. Just get rid of it, however you think best.”

Wonder still suffusing his features, Connor nodded, in true agreement this time.

Then he smiled. It was only a small smile, but it was the first genuine one to make it onto either of their faces that day.

It was a start, Hank thought. They'd find their way from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that's all, folks!
> 
> I hope the conclusion was satisfying for those of you who made it this far.
> 
> If you liked this story and/or like android-centered hurt/comfort (or hurt/no comfort, for that matter; we all have our proclivities), I'd like to take this opportunity to once again direct your attention to the [Android Whump server](https://discord.gg/xd8qVKx) on Discord that's responsible for inspiring me to write this. 
> 
> If you _didn't_ like this story, that's also your prerogative and absolutely fine! But I'm unlikely to engage if you decide to yell at me about how much you hate it.
> 
> (I am totally open to concrit, though, by the by, _if it's the type that can be applied to future writerly endeavors._ I've really enjoyed this first experience of writing for D:BH, and I intend to keep at it, so I could use thoughtful advice on that front from anyone willing to provide it! This story specifically, however, is finished and is going to stay up as-is, so I won't be making major changes to it on the basis of comments from readers. But if there's a quick-fix typo or the like bugging you, I'll happily go back in and make that sort of edit.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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